


Discount on omnipotence [redemption sold separately]

by Biorenewologist



Category: The Order of the Stick
Genre: Gen, Nightmares, at least the trancing issues are canon, familicide aftermath, or issues with trancing, possible PSTD if you look really closely, possible fudging of canon, post-Tarquin arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-15
Updated: 2014-08-15
Packaged: 2018-02-13 06:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2140419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Biorenewologist/pseuds/Biorenewologist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It had taken a long time, but V had finally started trancing regularly again. The nightmares had died down, though they still struck now and again, and all seemed well. Relatively so, considering the elf was a mass murderer.</p>
<p>V had been getting better. Blackwing had been careful. It had been going so well, which of course meant that something was going to ruin the whole thing.</p>
<p>Damn those fiends. Damn that stupid wall carving that shoved the enormity of Familicide back in their face. Damn the stupid pits of hell. V had been getting better, and now that was all ruined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Discount on omnipotence [redemption sold separately]

**Author's Note:**

> Look, it's not my fault that I have an unhealthy obsession with Vaarsuvius. I have a type, okay? And that type is androgynous, brilliant, volatile elves with a superiority complex and a snarking problem.
> 
> Anyways, this really doesn't impact canon whatsoever and is just me flailing around with the relationship between Blackwing and Vaarsuvius, because I have formed an emotional attachment to this emotional attachment. It is also the product of my habit of being mean to my favourite characters and being really fond of sarcastic assholes.

Vaarsuvius was restless, both by nature and more recently by choice. Not that Blackwing could really blame them.

Trancing had gone from a calming, rejuvenating session of zen to something that made them jerk awake, screaming in horror, more often than not. V would sit awake for hours afterwards, shaking and curled in on themselves, silent sobs wracking their body. It was as if the act of trancing just tangled the snarl in the strings of the elf's broken mind further.

It had taken a long time, but V had finally started trancing regularly again. The nightmares had died down, though they still struck now and again, and all seemed well. Relatively so, considering the elf was a mass murderer.

V had been getting better. Blackwing had been careful. It had been going so well, which of course meant that something was going to ruin the whole thing.

Damn those fiends. Damn that stupid wall carving that shoved the enormity of Familicide back in their face. Damn the stupid pits of hell. V had been getting better, and now that was all ruined.

_Maybe you shouldn't,_ he had said. _Just this once. Wait until you process everything, and try tomorrow. I mean, I'm all for trancing on a regular basis, but you know that-_

And V had just shaken their head. _I will pay my reckoning as it comes. It is the least I can do._

"What a time to be going Lawful on me," Blackwing muttered. "Poor bastard."

The poor bastard in question wasn't looking too good. V was trembling, irregular tremors shuddering through their hovering body even as they tranced. That definitely wasn't normal.

Being powerless was one thing; Blackwing could handle being powerless. In a world of powerful enemies that could skewer and roast him, there was always the option of a bird to the face.

This was more along the lines of dying without a saving throw. This went much deeper than powerlessness; it was like the loss of autonomy. At least the powerless could try to do something.

"V is perfectly capable of handling themselves," he said aloud. "They're a powerful, intelligent wizard who can hold their own under pressure. I just need to chill out and let them sort their shit out alone."

V was an unstable, traumatized and guilty wizard that dealt with emotional stress with exploding runes, and they were alone in the confines of their own nightmare-riddled mind.

"Or maybe I need to do something else," Blackwing said, hopping over and nudging them. "Hey. Wake up."

Vaarsuvius didn't stir, and the shaking didn't stop. A little more force would probably be required.

He took to the air, swerving around the floating elf and battering them in the face with his wings. " _Caw!_ Wake up call, V! Time to stop having awful traumatic visions and do something better, like preparing Explosive Runes while awake! Remember explosive runes? You used it like ten times on Belkar that one time!"

Not a peep, let alone an irritated scowl. Was it even possible to slap an elf out of a trancing state?

_"V,"_ he said, this time through the mental link they shared. _"V, can you hear me? It's Blackwing. I think it's time to wake up now, so if you could just snap out of this…"_

Still nothing. That could be a problem - if a telepathic message wasn't getting through, contact might be impossible.

_"Come on, work with me here!"_ Blackwing landed on their head, pecking them with as much force as he dared. _"I can't follow you in there, V! You have to get yourself out!"_

Maybe he was overreacting. Yeah, that was it. His wizard was perfectly fine in there without him. V didn't need him to make ethical and emotionally healthy choices; they could handle these nightmares.

_…Oh._

"Hang on in there, V," Blackwing said, spreading his wings and booking it out of the room. "I'll be right there! I'm sure there's some obscure spell or rulebook that will let a familiar do some sort of dreamwalking or dreamflying in the mind of his wizard somewhere."

After all, if he had gotten dragged to hell because their souls were bound together, there had to be some sort of upside. Otherwise, he had been totally gypped.

Gods, he hoped there was an upside.

-:-:-

Vaarsuvius could not stop shaking.

There was no room for such a thing in the life of a spellbinder. Wavering hands or an unsteady tongue meant the end of a wizard's career; the delicate movements and incantations could not deviate from the preset. Precision was the source of their power, and there was probably some extended metaphor about it failing them now.

Maybe the sea of corpses outside of the walls of the Forcecage they had barely managed to cast around themself would factor into the anecdote somewhere. Perhaps the writhing mass of vengeful, tortured and furious souls that screamed for their blood was a poetic device as well.

"D-Disintegrate," V croaked, pointing at one of the bodies. "Disintegrate, damn you!"

Vaarsuvius was surrounded by the spirits of their victims, and they couldn't stop shaking long enough to do anything. More and more of them just kept dying, and they were helpless to stop it.

The spirits weren't helping with all of that shouting, either.

"You monster!"

"I had a wife and child!"

"I won't even see the love of my life in heaven because of you!"

"Was it worth it?"

No. No, it hadn't been. These people had died because of a stupid mistake, because of their pride. Thousands of them. Tens of thousands.

"I'm sorry!" V choked out, backing away from them. "I didn't mean-"

"You meant every syllable," bellowed a fat man in strange boots. "Are we just cannon fodder to you, elf?"

"No! No, never!"

V's legs gave way beneath them, and they collapsed onto the floor of the Forcecage. A pained sound escaped them, half cough and half sob, and they curled in on themselves on their side. This was too much to handle right now.

Maybe it was best to just lay there and do nothing. Trying only made the bodies pile higher.

Vaarsuvius closed their eyes. They were done.

_If there is anyone, anyone at all that cares to hear my cry, I beseech you: tell me what I can do to atone! I do not know where to start. There is a sea of blood on my hands that I cannot scrub clean._

Could they even call themself True Neutral anymore? Had they shifted their alignment to Evil permanently? Did seeking penance move them towards Good enough to tip them back over the edge?

"Sir Greenhilt's advice was wise," V murmured. "I would do well to take it to heart. That, at least, is something."

Coming to that conclusion was soothing, they had to admit. It was progress without consequences, or at least dire ones. That was a nice change.

Another nice change, if a foreboding one, was that they couldn't hear the voices of the dead anymore. They were completely silent.

V cracked open an eye, and immediately regretted it.

That _screen_ was on the wall of their Forcecage, the one from hell. Even just the sight of it made them cringe. And playing on the screen…

"No," Vaarsuvius gasped, pushing themself to their feet. "Not again! Never again will I stand by and let my companions be overrun while I watch. I am not helpless now, I can-"

It was like a switch had been flipped. One moment, the screen was showing the Order of the Stick at the precipice of being defeated; the next, it was if it had never been there in the first place.

The accusing cries of their victims rolled over them, and waves of nausea came with them.

_I don't understand. What is happening here?_

"Get away from me!" V screamed, backing into the center of the cube. "I cannot live my life in fear of taking action! Stay away from me!"

"You can't live your life in denial of what your actions do!" snarled a woman that might have been Tarquin's wife. "Face up to what you did, elf!"

"Get _away from me!_ Fireball!"

Nothing. Barely even a fizzle. They were still shaking too much to use magic - or maybe there was some sort of block in the way. They might have failed the required checks to ascertain the source.

Vaarsuvius took a deep breath, trying to ease the tremors that shivered through their entire body to no avail. This whole situation made no sense, none at all. They might have thought this to be one of those trancing vision flashbacks, but this was not a memory and thus shouldn't be replaying. Maybe they were hallucinating vividly.

What should they do? What could they do? Should they even try to do anything?

"Leave me alone," V whispered, sinking to their knees and clapping their hands over their ears. "I am sorry. Just leave me alone."

The world blurred into the meaningless noise that made it past their palms and darkness as they shut their eyes again, and they couldn't stop shaking.

-:-:-

"Vaarsuvius!"

Getting that obscure spell had been a painfully stupid perversion of a side-quest, and Blackwing wanted nothing more than to never think about or mention it again. He had been forced to go to Elan for help, for crying out loud. _Elan._ Though to be fair, the bard had given him some great tips on keeping the scene short by expositing the need-to-know information through internal monologuing.

Details eternally set aside, he had successfully made it into V's trance, and he was the best damned familiar a guilty genocidal elf could possibly have. Also, he had totally stolen that bauble off of the front of Elan's cloak, so it wasn't a total bust.

Now he just had to find V in this freaking desert of corpses. His wizard really knew how to pick the scenery.

"Vaarsuvius!" he shouted again, swooping upwards for altitude. "Come on, at least help me out here a little! I'm going above and beyond my pay grade!"

Gods, he hoped V wasn't under those bodies. He didn't want to so much as land on those creepy things, let alone deal with trying to dig through thousands of them.

"I am really regretting this decision," Blackwing muttered. "Honestly, assuming I like corpses because I'm a scavenging bird is just racist!"

_"True sight!"_

Vaarsuvius' voice sounded in his mind, and he flared his wings in surprise, braking sharply in midair. "V? Oh, man, it's so good to-"

_"True sight!"_

Wait, was V casting it again? Why would they need to do it more than once?

_"V, where are you?"_ Blackwing called through their mental link. "What's going on?"

The only response was a wave of hopelessness, one that he suspected wasn't even directed at him. There was still rage in the elf, that was for sure, but it had been crushed beneath a wall of despair.

Blackwing jerked out of the link before he crashed, shaken by the sensation. That was definitely not good.

_I need to get there, now._

Enough of this. He was the companion to a powerful spellcaster. He could handle some stupid trance vision.

Blackwing waited, hovering in place as he watched the link. On the other end, Vaarsuvius was gathering their willpower, which meant-

"True sight!" he said, synchronized with his wizard, and pink swarmed over his vision.

Ah, he had been right. Even if he wasn't in the required range in this brain-plane, he and V were still right next to each other back out in reality. They could still cast together and maintain it here.

V was surprised, he could tell. It must have worked; both of them were using the spell. On the other hand, they must have expected it to fail, which was not a good sign.

"Why are you even using true sight?" Blackwing muttered, turning his attention back to the ground. "Or for that matter, why are you casting spells at all? I thought you could only observe and reenact your memories, not change them - oh, holy seagull shit!"

That was some sort of ghost. That was definitely some sort of really pissed off ghost. It was streaking across the corpses that covered the ground at an alarming speed, not paying him any mind.

It was also heading towards what seemed to be a swarm of more pissed off ghosts. There had to be thousands of them.

"I guess that's as awful a direction as any," he said, soaring after the spirit. "Lead the way, sucker!"

_Hang on, V. I'll get you out of this._

-:-:-

Wow, Elan had been right about one thing: scene breaks really were convenient. It was like jumping right where he needed to go without any of the hassle.

Though the fact that it hadn't gone to Vaarsuvius' point of view after his was worrisome. He was no expert on meta crap like this, but if his wizard was in such a bad way that they couldn't even manage a beat panel, that was not a good sign.

[Unless this was some badly executed dramatic twist, which could mean that V was actually as relatively fine as they could be in the middle of a nightmare that included angry ghosts and dead bodies. He really had no idea either way. Unlike _some_ people, he found the fourth wall to be more useful when it was actually in place.]

_"Vaarsuvius!"_ Blackwing called, circling above the swarm of ghosts. _"Are you down there?"_

He really hoped they weren't underneath a bunch of undead. That would just be awful.

There was no response. Even the emotional reactions had died down to numbness - he could barely even tell that V was alive. At least they weren't in pain.

_Why can't they hear me? It's not being blocked or anything._

Blackwing pulled into a dive, plummeting until he was only a few feet above the ghosts. Time to try something else. "V! If you're down there, cast Magic Missile!"

Nothing. Actual speech wasn't getting through, either. He was rapidly running out of options.

_Well, I'm essentially powerless again, but I can still make poor decisions._

"If I were keeping track of how many plans I've tried, this would probably be Plan Q or something," he said. "Counterintuitive as it may be, I really hope you're under this pile of undead, buddy."

He swerved, screeching at the top of his avian lungs, and battered the nearest specter in what he _really_ hoped wouldn't become some sort of signature bird-to-the-face move. Awesome though it may be, he wasn't meant for taking heavy damage.

Fortunately, his wings went right through them, so heavy damage wasn't a problem. Unfortunately, it felt like sticking them into ice water.

Squawking, Blackwing pulled away. "Geez, that's cold! What are you, malevolent ice cream from beyond the grave?"

That was the least of his worries. V should have at least noticed him taking that hit, but there was no reaction at all. It was like being empathically connected to a block of wood.

"This is definitely beyond the pay grade I would get if Elan was my employer, and he had access to all of Haley's funds," he grumbled. "I miss those good old days when I could say _screw this, I'm going home_."

Blackwing folded his wings and plunged.

_Geronimo - oh, **shit** , this was a terrible idea._

That occurred to him an instant before he plunged into the ranks of the undead, and by then it was too late.

The cold him him like a wall, and he let out a decisively non-hysterical shriek as he plowed through the undead.

On the upside, he had disturbed the existential quandary that was several imaginary bad-trance-vision pissed off ice cream spirits, and he was pretty sure that they swirled out of existence behind him. That probably looked badass from some point of view that wasn't being violently converted into a popsicle with dinosaur genetics.

Running into an actual wall was significantly less badass, and also unexpected. It knocked the wind out of him, and he crumpled against the pink surface.

_Pink…?_

His heart skipped a beat, and he peered through what seemed to be a Forcecage. Had his kamikaze maneuver actually sort of worked?

Yes, apparently. His wizard was lying prone inside, unmoving. Maybe unconscious - could they fall unconscious while in a trance?

Well, the trance was still in place, so they were alive. There was still a chance.

_"Vaarsuvius!"_ he called through the link, unable to speak aloud. _"V, it's me! Let me in!"_

Nothing. He was sick and tired of getting nothing.

Blackwing pounded his stiff, frozen wings against the forcefield, cawing weakly with the last of his air. _"Wake up! You have to let me in! Come on, V, pull yourself together!"_

The link shivered, just a little. V was stirring.

_"That's it! You're doing great. Just a little more, and then open the roof of this cube-"_

He could feel the temperature dropping around him, and he whined in protest before he could stop himself. Stupid animal reactions. Stupid ice cream wraith things.

_"Hurry, V!"_

_"Blackwing?"_ asked the elf, sounding dazed. _"What-"_

Oh, thank the baubles.

_"No time for that!"_ he said, shivering from cold as he struggled to breathe. _"I'm freezing out here!"_

Guilt, doubt, confusion and self-loathing blazed up on the other side of the link, the unexpectedly powerful impulse nearly overwhelming him. Being in V's dream must increase the emotional feedback, because that was a hell of a lot stronger than usual. He didn't dare break away, but _damn_ if that wasn't a bad case of debilitating hesitance and self-destruction -

_"V, please!"_

\- and Vaarsuvius flattened it, shoving it down with an iron will that took him completely by surprise. It was like they had found the answer to a terrible question, and this new resolve was based completely on the relief of actually knowing what the right thing to do was.

[So maybe he wasn't above metagaming. Sue him.]

Inside the cube, V sat up; pink flared. The wall-ground-forcefield opened up, and he was falling.

_Looks like I've got one more collision ahead of me. Let's hope this one doesn't knock me into negative HP._

"Bugsby's Upturned Hand of Catching," rasped a _really freaking wonderful_ voice, and he did not hit the ground hard for once. Being set down gently by a giant, magical hand was a very nice experience.

A less nice one was being too frozen to move. He was pretty sure that his feathers had frostbite, or maybe were just about to crack in half from the cold. Everything hurt.

The confidence in his wizard was melting away, self-doubt and shame pressing inwards on them both like a too-tight noose of negativity. It was confining, an emotional cage that dragged him too close to the edge of panic.

Blackwing might be the familiar of a powerful wizard, but he was still a bird and he still had instincts. Being trapped like that was horrible, and it took all of his willpower to keep the link open. It wasn't like being unable to move or speak was enough, right?

If he kept it open, he had to deal with this. If he shut it, they would both be alone, and he would be frozen in place with no one there to hear him. V was still his best bet on getting out of this, no matter how broken they were, and his wizard still needed him.

_"Help,"_ he pleaded. _"Don't shut down on me now, V!"_

No wave of resolve greeted his words, but V seemed to catch the flagging end of the willpower from before. Clarity formed among the turmoil just long enough for them to say _"Dispel magic."_

That seemed to work just fine. Blackwing gasped as movement returned to him in a rush, flailing in a manner that was absolutely dignified. He was still cold, but he could move.

And just like that, the other side of the link snapped into silence so fast that he craned his neck to make sure V hadn't passed out. They hadn't, fortunately, but they didn't exactly look ideally healthy - they were crouched heavily on their knees, slumped forward and exhausted in every sense of the word, a dull numbness the only sensation he could feel them feeling.

"Thanks," he said, once he had caught his breath again. "If the icy talons of death approach, tell them to bring me a heating spell first, okay?"

"You are not dying," Vaarsuvius said dully, not looking up. "You are bound to me. It stands to reason that you would be some sort of exception in this hellish plane."

Oh, boy, his wizard was a mess. The fact that he had been attacked by ice cream wraiths and could say that without being a hypocrite really showed just how bad this had gotten.

"Alright, just to make sure we're on the same page," Blackwing said, "what happened?"

Now V looked up, and the hopelessness in their eyes was awful to see. "I do not know what is going on. All I know is that if I try to take action, more people die; yet if I do not, my friends do. My magic fails more often than it works, and _I cannot get my hands to stop shaking._ "

_Poor bastard._

"Well," he said, struggling to stand up, "you're trancing right now, and it looked pretty bad out there. So I found a spell that would let me fly in your dreams and came down to help."

"Impossible," V said. "This is not a memory."

"No, it's not," Blackwing said. "It's a normal person style nightmare. Looks like your traumatic replay mechanism got smashed up."

"So this is not real."

"Nah." _You know you've gone off the deep end when you can't say that tens of thousands of dead bodies is an obvious point for not real._ "You've been under for five or six hours. How you holding up?"

V just sighed, shoulders slumping as they hung their head. "I cannot deny that my shattered subconscious has a point. Heavy-handed though the anecdote may be, it is not an inaccurate reflection of my dilemma. All of those people… do I dare risk repeating my mistakes, or do I place my companions in danger with my inaction? If the world burns around me, where do I walk?"

"Uh, walk towards Xykon," Blackwing said. "And hope he's flammable. Look, V, not every single choice you make results in a mega-genocide, or even in bloodshed. You even went out of your way to avoid it. You've been doing pretty good."

"And how quickly could that change?"

"It won't," he assured them. "You just have to be a little more careful, that's all. No explosions without thinking of the consequences."

Vaarsuvius shook their head. "I cannot hope to predict all of the consequences. Attempting to do so would ensnare me in hesitation. No matter what I do, I risk destroying more and more innocent lives - or losing those that I care about."

"Alright, but I'm here, aren't I?" Blackwing said. "Those fiends wanted my advice out of the picture, so it has to be worth something. You won't be doing this alone."

There was a silence as V mulled that over. The link still broadcasted numbness, but now he was starting to think that it was the only thing standing between his wizard and the crushing guilt.

"You are offering to pacify me when I require it," they said finally. "To assist me when I am in need of moral guidance. You mean to say that you offer me your support?"

"Yeah," he said, relieved. "Of course, dumbass. I'm here for you. It's why you have a familiar, remember?"

Vaarsuvius paused, considering that. "I… see. Thank you."

"No problem," Blackwing said.

"You are a good friend." They still sounded pensive, like this was some sort of revelation or epiphany. "And you truly went to such lengths to come to my aid, even though none would have been the wiser had you not taken action?"

"Well, yeah. That's what friends do."

"I was unaware that friends were expected to research dreamwalking and pursue one another into their nightmares," V said. Ah, how he had missed that sarcastic tinge to their voice.

"It's not expected," he said. "That's the point. Friends help each other even when they don't have to. It's a lot more broad than just signing a contract of what you have to do to be a good friend. Hell, that's like a cornerstone of being Good in general: do good for the sake of doing it."

"I see. Well, in that case, I shall endeavor to add that to my methods of recompense," V said, straightening. "I appreciate what you have done."

Blackwing bobbed his head, flapping his still-stiff wings for lift and hopping towards his wizard. "Sounds good to me. Let's get out of here, shall we? Those things are wigging me out."

"I am unsure that I can force myself to wake," Vaarsuvius said, reaching out and scooping him off the ground. "But I agree. The spectral projections are disturbing me as well. Can you hear them, then?"

"Hear them? No."

"Ah." They paused before lifting him up to their shoulder. "Would the fact that they are adding to my burden justify my setting them on fire? They do not seem to be strictly evil, just vengeful."

"I think that counts as self-defense," he said. "Blast away."

"Good. You may want to close your mind off from my own."

_They're dropping the wall._

"No, that's fine," Blackwing said. "Who knows, maybe the power of friendship with give you a bonus to your sanity check."

"Emotional support has worked in our favour before," they admitted. "Very well. If you do not mind, then I shall attempt to regain my usual faculties now."

_This is going to suck,_ he thought, though he didn't broadcast it. "Ready when you are."

V took a deep breath, and the numbness shriveled away.

For the third time in so many minutes, he had the incredibly unpleasant sensation of hitting a wall at high speed. This whole 'chase after V in their dreams' thing was definitely not going to happen often.

_Yourfaultyourfaultyourfaultyourfaultyoukilledusyoukilledthemyourfaultyourfault-_

He caught himself quickly enough, resisting the faint urge to give in to the gravitational pull that was the soul of his wizard and the assimilation of his identity into them through the link. Who even had time for being wiped from existence? Not him, that's for sure.

Experiencing the turmoil in V while remaining detached wasn't painful, but it was strange. It felt like watching an emotional conflict from the outside, distant but not disconnected.

Come to think of it, that was exactly what he was doing, so it felt remarkably like he had expected it to feel like. He could still savor those few, precious moments where things were actually straightforward enough to work out like that.

_"You can do it, V!"_ Blackwing encouraged. _"I believe in you!"_

[Maybe callbacks had untapped power that they could use. It would certainly explain how Elan was still standing.]

In times of stress, Vaarsuvius almost always took refuge in their magical and intellectual competence. There was a lot of comfort to be found in knowing that whatever happened, they didn't have to worry about being helpless. A solid goal, especially one that could be solved with expenditure rather than restraint, was at least as crucial as their confidence.

And the funny thing about dreams was that they followed expectations, not rules. If they expected the secret lair to have a dragon in it, a dragon would be there. If V was so overcome by doubt that they expected their magic to fail, it would fail. If they got their shit together and expected themselves to be competent, they would be.

V shoved back at the overwhelming negativity, resolute self-assurance mixed with a _wonderfully_ familiar irritation at the psychological block solidifying to support them.

Who knew that a direction could be so therapeutic?

Blackwing whooped as his wizard effectively slammed it back, regaining a sizeable chunk of lost ground before it retaliated. The counterstrike was painfully strong [ _yourfaultyourfaultyourfault!_ ] while the spirits outside swirled angrily in their undead ice cream-y rage, and V faltered.

_"Come on, V, don't give up now!"_

Maybe there was a plus two circumstantial bonus involved, maybe not. Maybe V was just done with being stepped on by angst. Either way, the figurative flames of _attack attack attack_ blazed up, and they went right for the exit with great intent to trample everything in their way.

Vaarsuvius raised a hand, doubt shriveling in the wake of the old anger-plus-intellect that he knew so well, and _roared._

"Fireball!"

The not-nearly-so-figurative flames of magic hit the spirits full-on, and seeing them cut down relentlessly like that was a lot more satisfying than it should have been.

" _Bam!_ " Blackwing crowed, flapping his wings to emphasize his point. "Wasted! Don't mess with us, vanilla-spawn!"

Vaarsuvius straightened, dusting themselves off. There was still a lot of pain and trauma in their psyche, that was undeniable. They still had a long way to go. But for now, they were on their feet and feeling something other than numbness, and they were smiling.

That was good enough for him.

"I think it is about time we depart," V said.

"Yeah," he said. "Unless you want to blast a few more of those things."

"Inefficient," they said. "I still have spells to prepare. I can only hope that this counts as rest, despite the strenuous mental activity."

_That's the V I know._

"Then depart it is," he said. "Do you know how to get out of here?"

"Certainly," Vaarsuvius said. "We simply change scenes and assume that I knew the whole time, like so."

-:-:-

"You know, we're really going to get some comeuppance for abusing our medium awareness someday, and then you will regret ever listening to Elan," Blackwing said, taking in the walls of their room. "I hope you know that."

One thing was for sure: he was absolutely done with dreamwalking. No way was he doing it ever again. Unfortunately, he probably would have to someday, because plot continuity didn't give a shit about his resolutions to avoid it.

"I regret listening to Elan whenever he speaks in my immediate vicinity as a rule with few exceptions," V said. "Though to be fair, the exceptions are much more common in recent times. This is no more patently absurd than Haley's method of procuring diamonds. Our entire world is based upon such machinations."

"And now it's being threatened by the Snarl, isn't it?"

Vaarsuvius shook their head, settling down and picking up their spellbook. "We already have enough misuse of the concept of karma in its absolute loosest sense in this hurtling mission of idiocy. We do not need any from you."

Blackwing humphed.

"I do not think this qualified as rest," V said, brow wrinkling in irritation. "The others will almost certainly question my lack of spells. I shall have to expend extra time tonight."

"Assuming you need spells at all," he pointed out. "We're not exactly on the main road."

"Nevertheless, I am uncertain if our current mode of transportation is able to ignore random encounters. Our current concern is with preparing for one."

"Or we could let the others handle it."

Vaarsuvius paused, considering that. "Perhaps, if you think they are competent enough to take on aerial enemies without magical assistance."

"Probably," he said. "Either way, we still have a railroad plot to worry about, so the whole party has to make it there alive. I'm sure they'll be fine."

They rolled their eyes. "I thought you disproved of medium awareness."

"I think it's a pain in the ass," Blackwing said. "But we've got a quest, and I've got your flimsy psychological health to worry about. I'll manage."

Vaarsuvius, to his surprise, smiled. Not the sort of dangerous smile that appeared when they blasted wide holes in the enemy lines or got in a good one against Belkar, but a rare genuine one. "I suppose we do."

They returned their attention to the spellbook, and he hopped away to give them some room. V was getting better again, and until that threatened to change, he had his own serious business to attend to.

Opening his talons, Blackwing set about admiring his recently acquired bauble, feeling rather proud of his accomplishments and deserving of some time off.

**Author's Note:**

> I have managed to overcome my anxiety about posting this by realizing that there really isn't enough OOTS fanfiction for people to complain about it sucking. Sure, maybe they won't like the story, but is that going to stop them from reading it? Fuck no. I'd read new fanfiction for OOTS even if it sucked. So yeah, you go ahead and disapprove of my character interpretations or my inexperience with D&D. You're the sucker who read the story, not me.
> 
> In any case, I hope this was satisfactory. Sorry it took so long to get out. c:


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